The Ursula K. Le Guin commemorative Forever stamp was officially unveiled today during a ceremony at the Portland (OR) Art Museum.

“Ursula once said she wanted to see science fiction step over the old walls of convention and hit right into the next wall — and start to break it down, too,” said Joseph Corbett, U.S. Postal Service chief financial officer and executive vice president, who served as the stamp ceremony’s dedicating official. “She felt the ideas represented in her fiction could help people become more aware of other ways to do things, other ways to be and to help people wake up.”

SF author Brenda Clough attended the ceremony and wrote it up for Book View Cafe.

…  The ceremony was attended by Le Guin’s husband Charles, her son Theodore and his wife Nancy, and her granddaughter. Speakers included Linda Long, curator and archivist at the University of Oregon library, where all of Le Guin’s papers and letters are housed. Amy Wong, a book editor at the Portland Oregonian, spoke of Le Guin’s many letters to the newspaper, covering topics that ranged from protesting the cancellation of Star Trek to the nation’s democratic process. And granddaughter India Downs Le Guin spoke of living with her grandmother after graduate school….

You can watch highlights from the Ursula K. Le Guin Stamp Ceremony in this YouTube video.

The outdoor ceremony was held in the Evan H. Roberts Sculpture Mall of the Portland Art Museum.

The 33rd stamp in the Literary Arts series honors Ursula K. Le Guin (1929–2018), who “expanded the scope of literature through novels and short stories that increased critical and popular appreciation of science fiction and fantasy.” The stamp features a portrait of Le Guin based on a 2006 photograph. The background shows a scene from her landmark 1969 novel The Left Hand of Darkness, in which an envoy from Earth named Genly Ai escapes from a prison camp across the wintry planet of Gethen with Estraven, a disgraced Gethenian politician. 

The artist for the stamp is Donato Giancola, a three-time Hugo winner who also was named a Spectrum Awards Grandmaster in 2019.

Information about how to order first day covers is here.